SOURCE: “The Victorian Ethos: Before and After Victoria,” in Victorian Minds, Alfred A. Knopf, 1968, pp. 275-99.

In the following essay, Himmelfarb presents a view of Victorian England informed by Halévy's historical thesis, then proceeds to examine contemporary analysis of this thesis.

Where once it was the fashion to vilify “Victorianism,” today one might be tempted to deny that there had ever been such a thing. The period, one might argue, was too long, the tempo of change too rapid, the cast of characters too motley to permit of generalization. How can we lump together sixty-four years of economic, political, social, and cultural revolution? How can we generalize about England, Scotland, and Wales, when we cannot even generalize about the north of England and the south? What can we make of an age whose cultural heroines were Mrs. Grundy and George Eliot, whose intellectual heroes were Carlyle, Newman...